Invitation
by Celandine Brandybuck
Summary: Draco had been surprised when Harry suggested that they go out for a meal.


Note: Written for the February 2006 challenge at The Hex Files, which required 750 words, beginning with "hearts and flowers".

**Invitation**

Hearts and flowers. Everywhere, inevitably, at this time of year. It was all very well for some, Draco supposed, but he would be just as happy if every pink and red Valentine heart were suddenly Transfigured into a flobberworm and stepped on.

He pushed his hands into his pockets and leaned against the window of the newsagents, trying to ignore the holiday display within. Harry must have been possessed to arrange to meet him outside a Muggle restaurant. Why not inside, where it would be warm on a drizzly February night? Every laughing couple who passed him made Draco more irritated at Harry's lateness.

"Sorry," said Harry, rushing up out of breath. "Had to finish up a case at work. But we caught the person who's been tampering with the broom charms of half the Quidditch teams in the country."

"Now that you're finally here, shall we go in?" Draco grumbled.

"Yes, let's. Hermione told me that this place makes a wicked moussaka, and the spanakopita is great too," chattered Harry as he led Draco inside.

Draco ordered a bottle of retsina. He didn't like it much, but somehow that seemed appropriate tonight. He had drunk three glasses and ordered a second bottle before he was halfway through his spanakopita, listlessly picking up flakes of phyllo with the edge of his fork and touching his tongue to them to eat them one by one. On another night he might have done that deliberately, hoping to see Harry blush, but tonight he didn't care. He poured another glass.

"You're drinking a lot," said Harry, leaning across the table and touching Draco's wrist.

"So?" Draco knew he sounded churlish. He pulled away from Harry's fingers and drank defiantly.

"I'd rather you didn't."

"Why?"

"Because the last time you got drunk you made a pass at me," said Harry, in a voice that reached no further than Draco's ears.

Which was true, and was part of the reason why Draco was so irritable. Because Harry had been polite about it, but also firm in his rejection, despite the mistletoe and rather a lot of rum punch.

It had taken several years in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement before they had left off the antagonism of their school days, but being assigned to work together had allowed them gradually to move beyond that and even to become friends. After a few months of camaraderie expressed in weekly outings to the Leaky Cauldron, Draco had realized that he felt more than friendship. He had not really intended to let Harry know that, not unless he had some sign that Harry might feel the same, but overindulgence at a holiday party had undermined his best intentions. Harry had not gone out for a drink with him for a couple of weeks afterward, and there was still an edge of reserve between them. Draco had been surprised when Harry suggested that they go out for a meal, tonight of all nights, but he was not about to say no.

He sighed, and apologized once again.

"No worries," said Harry easily, "just slow it down, all right? Maybe have some coffee with your baklava."

"All right," Draco agreed. The coffee was strong and bitter and cut into the blurred edges that he had been enjoying, but Harry was right, so long as he was out, it was best to have it. Draco watched as a Muggle couple walked past their table on the way out, the woman in a tight black dress and pressed up against the man, who had his arm wrapped around her.

"They look happy," Harry remarked.

"Indeed." Draco thought longingly of his flat, where he could get drunk on firewhisky and forget about being alone.

"Nice to have someone to spend Valentine's day with," said Harry. Suddenly he laughed. "Remember those terrible dwarfs that Lockhart had dressed up as cupids in second year?"

A snatch of verse came back to Draco. "_His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad_, wasn't that it?"

They were greener, really. But he put that thought firmly out of his head.

"Yeah. Poor Ginny."

There seemed nothing to say to that. Draco reached into his pocket for some Muggle money to pay with.

"Draco." Harry hesitated long enough that Draco looked up from counting out the unfamiliar coins.

"I needed to be the one who asked. Would you like to come home with me tonight?"

Hearts and flowers might not be such a bad thing after all.


End file.
